Simple plum cake – Prăjitură simplă cu prune

During summer, I’m really not into making complicated cakes that take a long time to prepare and bake. One of my go-to dessert recipes for summer is this simple cake filled with fruits – this time, I decided to use plums. I would usually make this cake with apricots during summertime, but I received some really good-looking plums from my dad, and since I don’t really like eating them raw, I decided to use them for this fluffy, moist, easy-to-make plum cake.

I’ve already used the recipe for the cake batter when I posted the rhubarb, strawberry and meringue cake, and since it’s my favorite batter for this type of dessert, I preferred using it this time as well. I’ve seen that many bloggers, and Romanians in general, prefer to make these simple fruit cakes with a cake batter which only contains eggs, sugar and flour. If you use this version, you have to beat the egg whites really well and then slowly incorporate the rest of the ingredients to make sure that the air remains in the batter.

With my version of the simple plum cake, you’ll see that you can use only one bowl, and all you have to do is mix the ingredients, step by step, then add the fruits over the cake batter, and that’s it. Perfect for summer, right? Adding the seeds of a vanilla bean will definitely enhance the cake’s flavor, so make sure you use this ingredient.

Remember that you can use almost any juicy fruit with this cake batter – I would use apricots, peaches, nectarines, strawberries, or sour cherries. Since all these fruits are a bit sour, it’s nice to dust the cake with some powdered sugar after you take it out the oven and it’s already cooled down a bit. The cake will keep well for up to 3 days, covered and refrigerated.

Serve it with a cold glass of lemonade, it will be a real delight for your soul during a hot summer day. 😊

Ingredients

400 g (3 1/5 cups) flour

300 g (2 cups) sugar

200 g (1.8 stick) softened butter

4 eggs

225 ml (0.95 cup) milk

1 vanilla bean

10 g (2 1/2 teaspoons) baking powder

½ kg plums

A pinch of salt

Powdered sugar

Directions

In a large bowl, mix the sugar with the soft butter until combined.

Incorporate one egg at a time, mixing well after adding each egg.

Scrape the vanilla bean and add the seeds to the mixture. Add the salt as well.

Mix the flour with the baking powder, and incorporate 1/2 of the flour in the mixture.

Add 1/2 of the milk and mix well, then add the remaining flour, mix again, add the remaining milk, and mix until well-combined.

Pour the mixture in a buttered, rectangular, large cake tin.

Cut the plums into quarters, then distribute them over the cake batter.

Bake the cake at 180°C (360°F) for 30-40 minutes. After 30 minutes, insert a toothpick in the cake – if it comes out clean, it’s done.